Flowery Tuscany
如花的托斯卡纳
North of the Alps, the everlasting winter isinterrupted by summers that struggle and soonyield; south of the Alps, the everlasting summer isinterrupted by spasmodic and spiteful winters thatnever get a real hold, but that are mean and dogged.The in-between, in either case, is just as it may be.But the lands of the sun are south of the Alps, forever.
In the morning, the sun shines strong on thehorizontal green cloud-puffs of the pines, the skyis clear and full of life, the water runs hastily, stillbrowned by the last juice of crushed olives. Andthere the earth’s bowl of crocuses is amazing. Youcannot believe that the flowers are really still. Theyare open with such delight, and their pistil is so red-orange,and they are so many, all reaching out wideand marvelous, that it suggests a perfect ecstasyof radiant, thronging movement, lit-up violet andorange, and surging in some invisible rhythm ofconcerted, delightful moverment. You cannot believethey do not move, and make some sort of crystallinesound of delight. If you sit still and watch, you beginto move with them, like moving with the stars, andyou feel the sound of their radiance. All the little cellsof the flowers must be leaping with flowery life andutterance.
And now that it is March, there is a rush offlowers. Down by the other stream, which turnssideways to the sun, and tangles the brier andbramble, down where the hellebore has stood so wanand dignified all winter, there are now white tuftsof primroses, suddenly come. Among the tangle andnear the water-lip, tufts and bunches of primroses,in abundance. Yet they look more wan, more pallid,more flimsy than English primroses. They lacksome of the full wonder of the northern flowers. Onetends to overlook them, to turn to the great, solemn-facedpurple violets that rear up from the bank, andabove all, to the wonderful little towers of the grapehyacinth.
This is the time, in March, when the sloe is whiteand misty in the hedge-tangle by the stream, andon the slope of land the peach tree stands pink andalone. The almond blossom, silvery pink, is passing,but the peach, deep-toned, bluey, not at all ethereal,this reveals itself like flesh, and the trees are likeisolated individuals, the peach and the apricot. It isso conspicuous and so individual, that pink amongthe coming green of spring, because the first flowersthat emerge from winter seem always white or yellowor purple. Now the celandines are out, and along theedges of the podere, the big, sturdy, black-purpleanemones, with black hearts.
The daisies are out too, in sheets, and they toored-mouthed. The first ones are big and handsome.But as March goes on, they dwindle to bright littlethings, like tiny buttons, clouds of them together.That means summer is nearly here.
In some places there are old yellow tulips,slender and spiky. They are very lovely, pricking outtheir dulled yellow in slim spikes. But they too soonlean, expand beyond themselves, and are gone likean illusion. And when the tulips are gone, there is amoment’s pause, before summer. Summer is the nextmove.
In the pause towards the end of April, when thef lowers seem to hesitate, the leaves make up theirminds to come out. For sometime, at the very endsof the bare boughs of fig trees, spurts of pure greenhave been burning like little cloven tongues of greenfire vivid on the tips of the candelabrum. Now thesespurts of green spread out, and begin to take theshape of hands, feeling for the air of summer. Andtiny green figs are below them, like glands on thethroat of a goat.
Now the aspens on the hill are all remarkablewith the translucent membranes of blood-veinedleaves. They are gold-brown, but not like autumn,rather like thin-winged bats when like birds—callthem birds—they wheel in clouds against the settingsun, and the sun glows through the stretchedmembrane of their wings, as through thin, brown-redstained glass. This is the red sap of summer, not thered dust of autumn.
The cherry tree is something the same, but moresturdy. Now, in the last week of April, the cherryblossom is still white, but waning and passing away:it is late this year, and the leaves are clustering thickand softly copper in their dark blood-filled glow. It isqueer about fruit trees in this district. The pear andthe peach were out together. But now the pear tree isa lovely thick softness of new and glossy green, vividwith a tender fullness of apple-green leaves, gleamingamong all the other green of the landscape, the half-highwheat, emerald, and the grey olive, half-invisible,the browning green of the dark cypress, the black ofthe evergreen oak, the rolling of the heavy green puffsof the stone-pines, the flimsy green of small peachand almond trees, the sturdy young green of horse-chestnut.So many greens, all in flakes and shelvesand tilted tables and round shoulders and plumesand shags and uprisen bushes, of greens and greens,sometimes blindingly brilliant at evening, when thelandscape looks as if it were on fire from inside, withgreenness and with gold.
In the wood, the scrub-oak is only just cominguncrumpled, and the pines keep their hold on winter.They are wintry things, stone-pines. At Christmas,their heavy green clouds are richly beautiful. Whenthe cypresses rise their tall and naked bodies of darkgreen, and the osiers are vivid red-orange, on the stillblue air, and the land is lavender; then, in mid-winter,the landscape is most beautiful in colour, surgingwith colour.
Not that this week is flowerless. But the flowersare a little lonely things, here and there: the earlypurple orchid, ruddy and very much alive, you comeacross occasionally, then the little groups of bee-orchids,with their ragged concerted indifference totheir appearance. Also there are the huge bud-spikesof the stout, thick-flowering pink orchid, huge budslike fat ears of wheat, hard-purple, and splendid. Butalready odd grains of the wheat-ear are open, and outof the purple hangs the delicate pink rag of floweret.Also there are very lovely and choice cream-colouredorchids with brown spots on the long and delicate lip.These grow in the more moist places, and have exotictender spikes, very rare-seeming. Another orchid is alittle pretty yellow one.
By May, the nightingale will sing an unbrokensong, and the discreet barely audible Tuscan cuckoowill be a little more audible. Then the lovely pale-lilacirises will come out in all their showering abundanceof tender, proud, spiky bloom, till the air will gleamwith mauve, and a new crystalline lightness will beeverywhere. There will be tufts of iris everywhere,arising up proud and tender. When the rose-colouredwild gladiolus is mingled in the corn, and the love-in-a-mist opens blue: in May and June, before the cornis cut. But as yet is neither May nor June, but the endof April, the pause between spring and summer, thenightingale singing uninterrupted, the bean-flowersdying in the bean-fields, the bean-perfume passingwith spring, the little birds hatching in the nests,the olives pruned, and the vines, the last bit of lateploughing finished, and not much work to hand, now,not until the peas are ready to pick, in another twoweeks or so.
So the change, the endless and rapid change. Inthe sunny countries, the change seems more vivid,and more complete than in the grey countries. In thegrey countries, there is a grey or dark permanency,over whose surface passes change ephemeral, leavingno real mark.
But in the sunny countries, change is thereality and permanence is artificial and a conditionof imprisonment. Hence, to the northerner, thephenomenal world is essentially tragical, because it istemporal and must cease to exist. Its very existenceimplies ceasing to exist, and this is the root of thefeeling of tragedy. But to the southerner, the sun isso dominant that shadow, or dark, is only merelyrelative: merely the result of something gettingbetween one and the sun.
In the human race, the one thing that is alwaysthere is the shining sun, and dark shadow is anaccident of intervention. For my part, if the sunalways shines, and always will shine, in spite ofmillions of clouds of words. In the sunshine, evendeath is sunny. And there is no end to the sunshine.
That is why the rapid change of the Tuscanspring is utterly free, for me, of any senses of tragedy.The sun always shines. It is our fault if we don’t thinkso.
spasmodic adj. 间歇的
ecstasy n. 狂喜
dwindle v. 缩小
ephemeral adj. 短暂的
阿尔卑斯山的北麓，漫长的冬天会偶尔被夏季打断，但夏天只挣扎片刻就屈服了；而在南麓，夏天会被一阵阵寒冬恶意打扰，但即使讨厌地纠缠，冬天也永远无法真正占了上风。在两者之间，任何情况都可能发生。但是阳光普照的地方永远都是阿尔卑斯山南麓。
清晨，强烈的阳光照在树枝平展如绿云般的松林上，天空晴朗，充满生机，流水匆匆，还带着破碎橄榄的汁水染出的棕色。遍地的番红花让人惊叹。你无法相信这些花真的是静止的。它们如此欢快地绽放，雌蕊是鲜亮的橙红色。它们有那么多，都在热烈地怒放，美得不可思议，挨挨挤挤地放出喜悦的光彩，仿佛翩翩起舞，一片明亮的紫色和橙色，和着无形的美妙节奏欢快地摆动。你无法不相信它们在动，而且发出了水晶般欢快的声音。如果你坐下静静欣赏，就会不由自主地随它们起舞，就像追随星星一样。你还会听到它们欢快的声音。花朵的每一个小细胞都跳跃着绚丽的生命和言语。
正是三月，百花盛开。在另一条朝太阳方向流动的溪边，野蔷薇和荆棘交错，藜芦苍白而不屈地挺过了冬天，现在一蓬蓬白色的报春花也出其不意地冒了出来。丛丛的报春花占满了杂乱的灌木丛和溪水的拐弯。可它们比英格兰的报春花更苍白，也单薄许多。它们不像北方的花朵那样夺目。人们往往会忽略它们，被河岸边挺拔端庄的紫罗兰吸引，或者更愿意欣赏风信子漂亮的小花塔。
三月，刚好是溪边灌木丛中白色的野李花如烟如雾，山坡上粉红的桃树孑然独立的时节。银粉色的杏花已渐渐飘零，桃树却顶着浓艳的花冠，一点儿也不飘逸，却是本来面目，而桃树与杏树就像毫不相干的两种人。绿色的春天里，桃花的粉色个性鲜明，十分醒目。因为冬天过后，早春的花常常是白色、黄色或紫色的。白屈菜也冒出头来了。在湖边还有高大强壮、黑色花蕊的紫黑色银莲花。
雏菊也开了大片大片的，像娇艳的红唇。开始的花长得又大又漂亮。可是三月将尽，它们就变成了颜色鲜艳的小花，小纽扣似的，云一样凑成一堆。这说明夏天要到了。
一些地方长着修长的、有着尖尖花瓣的黄色郁金香。它们很漂亮，细长的花瓣呈现一种暗黄色。不过，花瓣很快就会散得太开，盛极而衰，仿佛幻影一样消失无踪。郁金香开过后，初夏来临前，花儿们会暂时偃旗息鼓。之后就是夏天了。
沉寂的四月底，花朵似乎在犹豫，叶子却下定决心一股脑地跑了出来。一时间，纯净的绿芽在无花果的枝梢冒出，好像烛台顶上跳跃的绿色小火舌。如今，绿芽展开，变成小手的形状，触摸着夏天的气息。小小的绿色无花果藏在叶片下面，像山羊喉咙下面的腺体。
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